Etemenanki

Ya know, this whole Supreme Corpse thing in the States really has me fired up.  It goes straight to the heart of one of my pet peeves, which I can lay directly at the feet of the Roman Empire (aka Catholic Church), and which has so screwed up Western history and, by extension, the world.

Here's the deal....

Once upon a time, Humans were viewed as the pinnacle of Creation.  We were Masters of our domain (Seinfeld excepted) and the individual was a sacred being capable of achieving god-like characteristics.  Buddhism, which predates both Christianity and Judaism, speaks to the whole idea that humans are perfectable to the point of deification.  Each of us, given enough time and effort, are capable of achieving apotheosis.  As Robert Heinlein put it in 'Stranger in a Strange Land,' "Thou art god."

That whole concept is as foreign to us now as snorting Moon-dust.  We folks today can't imagine such an idea as individual human beings becoming gods in their own right.  That's some quaint idea reserved for Caesars and Japanese Emperors.  Us little people are but worms to be trod upon for the greater glory of someone else.

It shows up in so many subtle ways in our thinking and social discourse.  The concept of our baseness and unworthy-ness is built into our language.  We speak it and don't even think about it.  If we only paused for a moment and pondered what we say on a daily basis, we would (should) be shocked.

The other day, in my Business Conversation class, we took up the topic of 'jargon'.  Jargon is slang that is meant to exclude others from the inner sanctum of any given profession.  Jargon separates us into guilds and professions.  It allows us to exclude the uninitiated, but it also excludes us from other groups.  Slang divides generations, jargon divides disciplines.

Some of the terms we took up were 'core competency', 'corporate values', and 'human resources'.  If you are a corporate drone, then these terms are branded on your soul.  And chances are, you've probably never really thought them through.  So let's do that, because it's part of the Big Picture here on the Far Side.

First of all, 'core competency'.  This is a gem of bullshit.  Here, we've taken a horse turd and shined it up into an object of veneration and desire.  We are using 'core', which means the center, heart or penultimate, as an adjective to describe 'competency', which means average achievement, mediocrity and unenlightened.  So, when your boss talks about your company's 'core competency', he's asking you to buy into the idea that at your organization's heart is nothing more than mediocre ability.  A competent surgeon means he likely won't kill you, but all the effort and money likely won't cure you, either.  There's no art or substance, just following directions, boss.

The next term, 'corporate values', really goads me.  It is the assumption that a collection of humans, working in concert, constitute a 'person' that, in itself, has values, judgement and morals.  In other words, the collective hive becomes an 'individual' with a soul and independent existence.  We are no longer a collection of individuals working in concert, we are cells in a body corporate, where the body is supreme over the cells that make it up.  This should be classified as a psychiatric pathology, but of course psychiatry is part of the problem and definitely NOT part of the solution.

Finally, we come to 'human resources'.  This is particularly egregious.  Earth, wind, fire, and water are resources.  Humans are not.  Paper is a resource.  Ink is a resource.  Electricity is a resource.  Time is a resource.  But humans are humans.  We are not raw materials to be thrown at any given situation, along with whatever lumps of shit we have to hand.  I have skills and talents that are available to my employer for a fee, but I am not cord wood to be thrown on the fire on a cold night.

Now, I think we have sufficiently built a framework to show that the whole core of modern society is sick and dying.  That we humans has surrendered our basic value as individuals who are capable of apotheosis, in order to become cells in artificial golems of mystical construct, in order to receive remuneration and pay taxes is, in a word, sick.

We are a sick society, and perhaps that is why apocolyptism has become so prevalent.  We know we are sick and admit that we have no way to cure this sickness, and so we hope for some deus ex machina to come along and take care of the situation for us.

It doesn't matter what stripe you hail from.  Whether it's neopagan, Christian, Muslim, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, even atheism...everyone is looking for some outside force to come in and clean up our dirty thinking.

This is the way mass murderers think.  They know they are 'broken'.  They can't figure out a way to cure themselves.  So they start killing people hoping to be caught so that someone else will take responsibility for their sickness.

This is the origin of the 'war on drugs'.  The elite don't want the individual to figure out how to cure their illness.

We, as a society-culture-civilization, are doing all we can to deny the problem at the core of our existence.  We ARE gods.  We are spiritual beings who are capable of things far beyond what we are achieving on a daily basis right now.  We are in the throes of evil beings trying to harness our power for their personal gain.  We  are the cocoon denying the worm the ability to become a butterfly.

It's time.

It's time to release ourselves.  Only we, as individuals, can open the cocoon and allow ourselves to soar where we belong.  All the legalisms and jingoisms and jargonisms serve only to keep us in the shell, when we should be fighting with all our might to break free of this morass of limits and horizons.

To come full circle, the Supreme Corpse decision on Obamacare serves only the shell, not the 'becoming'.  Those who are doomed to believe that we are nothing without the collective are doomed to spend eternity inside the cocoon.

In Asian thought, an individual is created by hard work.  One must spend a lifetime drawing the elements together to form a unique being.  If you fail, then you must return to the 'soup' from which you came, so that your energy can be recycled into another effort, commonly called reincarnation.  Once you achieve 'self', then you can perfect that thing into an eternal being.

Is the 'self' you are trying to create a part of some 'corporate' being?  Or are you strong enough to create a real 'individual'?  Therein lies our common dilemma in this day and age.

The root of the problem lies in language.  Take control of your language, and you take control of your life...your REAL life.

The lesson of the Tower of Babel was that the gods confused human language to keep them from achieving their true status.  Language is the key.  Learn your own language to the roots.  Then learn as many other languages as you can.  Then, at some point, it will all congeal to show the Big Picture.

Don't let anyone control your language.  If they control your language, they control your thoughts.  That was the whole point of the Great Light called George Carlin.  That is the point that I am trying to make.  Learn all languages.  Use language with great care and control.  It is the most powerful weapon that we, as Individual Human Beings, have at our command.  By controlling our language, we are setting ourselves free to exit the cocoon.

In other words, fuck the Supreme Corpse.

But One Just Man

In our ever-optimistic approach to insanity, we can still find a positive spin on the recent US Supreme Court decision regarding the 'tax' called, euphemistically, Obamacare.

We can now say, without reservation or equivocation, that the US is a fascist dictatorship.  The primary difference between fascism and socialism is the corporate logo behind government fiat.  In this case, we can see the stamps of massive insurance conglomerates like sponsor patches on the togs of professional athletes.

Stephen Decatur Miller famously said, "There are three and only three ways to reform our Congressional legislation, familiarly called, the ballot box, the jury box and the cartridge box"  To this has been added the soap box, in recent years.  In every case, these boxes of liberty are now corporate owned.  Diebold owns the ballot box.  The American Bar Association owns the jury box.  A handful of manufacturers own the cartridge box.  And media mega-corporations own the soap box.

Why is this so positive?  Because it's always a good thing when the truth be known, even if it is unpleasant to look at.  Now that Obama has created an entire nation of syndics, and the Supreme Court has rendered its stamp of approval, we can safely remove our blinders and stare unblinkingly into the eyes of ruin.

Of course, there will be the vox populi of bovine humanoids who point to elections as proof that the US is still a 'democracy'.  This sophomoric defense fails in two ways, though.  First, it assumes that the corporate owners of the ballot boxes allow actual votes to be counted, and second that swapping out the butts in chairs has anything to do with changing things.

The old republic passed away over ten years ago in an orgy of nationalistic fervor, when a piece of legislation called the USAPATRIOT Act was enacted.  Anyone who actually read it, a group which excludes those who voted for it, knows that this particular piece of work was simply a translation of the Enabling Act that empowered Hitler after the Reichtstag fire and a couple of other lesser-known false flag events.

The Obamacare decision was not so much the institution of fascism, but rather confirmation that the supreme powers of the Executive Branch are now applicable to every aspect of human existence. 

As one stands back for a bit of perspective, one sees that all the conspiratorial theorizing about prison camps being built across the US for the past 20 years was overly optimistic.  The real plan was to turn the entire nation into a gulag.  The theories erred on the side of thinking that there would still be an 'outside' and 'inside' delineation.  Who could have dared conceive of a single concentration camp thousands of miles on a side?

Not that this was unexpected.  Ask any American indian or Japanese-American of an age and they can give you copious examples of the US practicing for just this evenuality.  A quick study of Lincoln's General Order 100 will form the historical framework for the US' ultimate decent into dictatorship.

Where a lot of people stumble on this issue is that they assume that having a dictatorship necessarily means having a single dictator, such as Hitler or Mao or Stalin.  In the case of the US, the dictator is only fronted by an individual who, like a spokesman for a product, can be replaced at a moment's notice.  The popular ones are kept around for eight years until the brand needs a fresh image.  The unpopular ones are summarily fired after four years.  We can't have them sullying the good name of the brand.

At this point, there frankly can be no reform.  Any challenge to the direction of the country must, by necessity, go through the courts, and we see now that they are completely owned by private interests.  Any student of history knows that you can't attack an enemy at their strong point, and so a revolutionary war is out of the question.  And the ballots are controlled at even the smallest levels by tabulators that are programmed and processed by foreign entities far outside the jurisdiction of the courts, even if the courts offered relief.

America: Land of the Free - full of security cameras, genital grabbing, TASER-happy cops, and warrantless searches. 

America: Home of the Brave - where whiz kids sit in bunkers 10,000 miles away and rain death from robatic aircraft.

America: Where No Man is Above the Law - though some are quite a bit more no-above than others, depending on how much bank they have.

America: The Shining City on the Hill - where torture, murder, lies, prevarication, cheating, scapegoating, greed, and corporate interests come far ahead of moral and ethtical considerations.

One can truly say this is the apocalypse, meaning great things are being revealed.  The pretense that the world's great power and empire has any elevated intentions has finally fallen away.  That nation now stands before the world as a naked aggressor without even the shred of law behind it.  It's new national motto is "might makes right", and it will slaughter anyone who gainsays it.

That the American people are not rioting in the streets shows that they are little more than frightened lambs cowering lest they lose their 'preparations' and their 'stockpiles'.  They are being goose-stepped headlong into Perdition with all their 'preparations'.  It was said long ago that when fascism came to America, it would wear the flag and sing patriotic songs.  Such things prophecy is made of.

There is one curious sidebar to this whole mess, and regular readers knew I wouldn't let them down.

America, despite all the bloviating on the part of got-rocks evangelical a$$holes, was NOT founded as a Christian nation on Christian principles.  It was founded by heretics and pagans escaping Europe where they were being burned at the stake by Christians.

This occultic miasma let to the creation of a truly unique American institution: The Church of Latter Day Saints, or more commonly, the Mormons.  In fact, in all of American history, it is probably the most unique creation to have come from 300 years of history.

The Mormon founder, Joseph Smith, made a number of prophesies which remain at the heart of their faith and a central tenet of their thinking.  The prophesy stated that in America's darkest hour, when the Constitution had become a shredded pile of hemp paper with pretty writing on it, a Mormon leader would rise up and lead the charge to take back the country and return it to its lawful roots.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you Mitt Romney.

We report, you think about it.

Doin' Da DSK

Catch my article up at UrbanSurvival today. Scroll down to "Asian Economy")

I have to admit that I am intrigued by the Dominique Strauss-Kahn story.  This is one of those events where the curtain has opened a little too far and we can get a good peak inside.

What gets my attention is that this is definitely a counterfeit situation, much like the Obama birth certificate and the Usama take-down.  While I am no fan of the IMF, nor any of the troglodytes who infest it, I can always tell a bullshit story when I see it (having worked in news and media for 40 years).

There are two parts of this story that don’t smell right.

• 1)      I’ve had occasion to stay in 5- and 6-star hotels in various parts of the world, and I can tell you that house-keeping does NOT enter a room that is occupied, unless specifically requested by the guest.   That fact is triply-true for $3,000 per night suites.  Just doesn’t happen.  If you leave a wake-up call, but don’t answer the phone, a MALE security staff-member will enter a MALE-occupied room to ensure the guest is OK.
• 2)      A man with Strauss-Kahn’s money and influence would not bugger chambermaids.  He could easily afford much classier prey.  With his stroke, one call to the concierge could have a selection of high-end models at his door.  It would have been handled quite discreetly and none of us would be the wiser.

As Marcellus says to Horacio in Hamlet, “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.”  Or in this case, the state of world affairs.

There is no doubt in my mind that Strauss-Kahn is being taken down.  The question is, is HE the target, or is the IMF the target?

Hotel Sofitel, New York

Paul Craig Roberts puts up a virtual rogue’s gallery of people and institutions that would love to see Strauss-Kahn and/or the IMF brought down a peg.  His conclusion is that the IMF itself is the target.  I think that’s just a little too neat and clean.  These things are never that tidy.  Every major incident in the past 100 years had multiple goals behind it.

I tend to use making movies as a metaphor for how the world works, and it serves me pretty well.  When Mr. Producer sits down with the script, he/she is looking for income potential, both in the story and stars, but also in product placement.  “If we sign Tom Cruise and have him drink Coca-Cola in this close-up, we can get the Coke folks to jack up some cash,” he thinks.

You’re scratching your head and thinking, “What in the hell does that have to do with Strauss-Kahn?  Glad you asked.

Let’s say you’re, oh…I don’t know…Sarkozy (just for instance, of course).  You want to take down your primary rival in the upcoming elections.  You have a plan, but you need some back-up, say with media and international relations.  So, you set up the incident in a New York hotel and shop around.  Ah!  The Brits want the IMF humiliated for their own reasons.  The Yanks have a beef with the guy, as well.  He’s got some enemies over here and some rivals over there.  If everyone chips in a little, we can all get some benefit without any one of us getting too dirty.  Blowback’s a bitch, as they say.

By doing this, you get several birds with one stone, and you get most of the folks who would blow the whistle on the operation to shut up, because they are in on it.  You get the Yanks to back you up in the courts and media.  The Limies and the Frogs won’t go against you, since they have a hand in the cookie jar.  You spread your risk and your expenses around.  No one says anything because they get what they want out of it, and if they squeal, everyone gets mud on them.

Just for good measure, you trot out a couple of paid accusers and feed them some classic lines, like ‘rutting chimpanzee.’  Honestly, I wish I had come up with that one.  That’s a sign of good writing behind the scenes.  And trust me, this whole thing is scripted and stage-managed down to the smallest detail.

It has been a signature of political hits over the past several decades to make accusations of sexual impropriety in one case, followed by a series of accusers who ‘suddenly’ come out of the closet.  Frankly, of all the high crimes and misdemeanors being perpetrated against citizens within and outside of various countries around the world, the bedroom proclivities of powerful men should be the least of our worries.

US Supreme Court

The US Supreme Court, in an 8-1 admission of traitorous actions, handed down a decision that police did not need warrants to search people’s homes or persons, thus completely trashing one of the central tenets of Anglo-American law, since the Magna Charta.

Basically, the way the American legal system works now, is anyone can be accused of anything at any time, without the least shred of evidence.  That person is then either forced to plea out on lesser charges, or face years of hearings and run-arounds until he is broke and broken, without ever getting to trial.  And even if he gets to trial, the jury is stacked through the process of voir dire so that there is no hope of winning acquittal.

Strauss-Kahn is as good as convicted, since the media has tried him and unquestioningly swallowed the ‘facts’ of the case, without batting a critical eye.  There is no love lost between me and people of Strauss-Kahn’s ilk.  I’d be happy as a pig in a poke to see him tried for crimes against humanity, for the what the IMF has done to developing countries under his watch.  He should have a lot of company, too.  But, this charade over diddling chambermaids who were violating company policy by entering an occupied suite is utter rubbish.

That the maid is an African immigrant, single parent, and living in New York City (one of the highest costs of living on the planet) makes her a prime target for bribery, given her situation.

I am no fan of Usama bin Laden, but he (and all of humanity) deserved a full and comprehensive trial, so that we could learn the truth of the matter.  Even the most heinous Nazi war criminals got that at Nurmberg, and they were arguably far worse in deed than bin Laden ever dreamed of being.

Certainly, Strauss-Kahn deserves his day in court, especially if such a man is ‘only’ on trial for buggering chambermaids, given the multitude of crimes he could be charged with, if there were such a thing as justice.

Unfortunately, justice is dead, in America and anywhere else, for that matter.  The jury box has been eviscerated, the prosecutors and judges have been allowed to run wild, and the media soil solemn proceedings with innuendo and here-say.

Whatever you think of Strauss-Kahn, what is really on trial here is justice.  If it doesn’t exist for the highest among us, then it certainly has vanished for the lowest.  This carnival show of rich and powerful, lowly chambermaids and suicide watches is sickening.  It is so transparent that I marvel at how many people don’t see through it.  But, then I’ve felt that way for a long time now.

It’s just that it’s so stinking obvious!

We are obliged to uphold Strauss-Kahn’s right to justice, because if he doesn’t have it, then you and I don’t either.  I would feel the same if it were Adolph Hitler, Benito Mussolini or Josef Stalin sitting in that cell in New York City.

It is the deepest indication of civilization how we conduct ourselves in the courts.  When I was a child, there was no end of finger-pointing at the Soviet Union for their show trials and miscarriages of justice.  Has the US now devolved into its own worst enemy?

If Strauss-Kahn is found guilty by a jury in a fair trial, then I whole-heartedly support the maximum sentence, since he abused his power and wealth by abusing such a defenseless human being.  But, he deserves a full and unbiased trial, in which we learn the unvarnished truth.

As it stands, we are being led to conclusions by master manipulators who are engineering a conviction in the court of public opinion.  We are seeing our rights trounced and destroyed at every turn.  Perhaps by showing this man that we support real justice, we can convert someone of his power and wealth to the side of truth and freedom.  It’s a long-shot, but just about anything is these days.

There is more than enough injustice and abuse in the world.  To fight it, we must rise above it, not reduce ourselves to its level.  One great Truth that appears in every religion I have ever studied: As you sow, so shall you reap.

Time to start sowing some seeds of justice.